It’s not so long ago that our gardens were productive as well as aesthetically pleasing, containing a veggie garden, a small orchard, and herbs and medicines too. How wonderful, but perhaps too much hard work? Or so thought some, as gardens moved away in disdain from anything productive or working class, to the opposite extreme of being purely decorative. Some modern gardens … [Read more...]
Growing your own sustainable food forest
This 12-day Permaculture Design Course, facilitated by Jamie Shepherd, is run as a Correspondence Course, which includes practical and interactive weekends where you can practice what you've learnt. Essentially, when each group of 8 students have completed all their assignments and have a good understanding, they will be invited to the weekend workshops in Fourways, … [Read more...]
Grow your own food step 2: Sowing the seeds of life
The time has come to sow the seeds for our next veggie harvest. We trust that your compost is coming along nicely? Please comment below this story, if you need any help. So let’s get the next season’s seeds sown. You can either purchase seed boxes from your nursery, or I got mine from Builder’s Warehouse, or simply use what you have. Vinny is good at collecting used … [Read more...]
Community trust addresses social needs in NW province
Hunger will be a thing of the past for around 70 orphaned, vulnerable and some HIV/AIDS infected and affected children at the Mangwana Day Care Centre. This is due to the partnership between PPC Community Trust and Food & Trees for Africa, as they have launched the Mangwana Permaculture food garden in the rural Ramatlabama Village in Mafikeng, North West. The Ramatlabama … [Read more...]
Sustainable Living and Indigenous Plant Fair (SLIP)
This year the Indigenous Plant Fair returns to its roots at the KZN Botanic Gardens in Pietermaritzburg. Since those early days (2004), the Fair has grown to include food plants as well as hundreds of indigenous plants and, in 2012, to embrace low-carbon living by showcasing sustainable solutions too. Nowadays SLIP, as the Sustainable Living and Indigenous Plant Fair has … [Read more...]
Grow your own food step 1: compost making
Essential in growing your own food is to keep it green all the way. So we will always be utilising waste items for all the processes which we teach. You don’t need to rush out and purchase special equipment. Use what you have or scout the junk yard or any place where you see waste piled up – you will find useful items to help you in your food growing endeavours. What do I need … [Read more...]
Food lovers first with industrial composter
Food Lovers Market in Noordhoek, Cape Town is the first retailer in South Africa to truly invest towards a zero waste solution by adopting a composting method which breaks down cooked food waste, helping to minimise the strain on our overflowing landfills. Dynamic husband and wife team, Christo and Suzette Viljoen have set the standards high with waste management at their … [Read more...]
Grow your own food, part 1: join this course
Growing your own vegetables is a wonderful green passion that is spreading like wildfire across our country. We are all concerned about food security in the light of climate changes and threats to our water and soil resources. Knowing how to turn a little patch of soil into a nutritious meal is a life skill, which we and our children simply need to acquire for a healthy … [Read more...]
Save the owls, help your garden
I just love falling asleep to the hoo-hoo emanating from our forested front garden. They love the huge and untrimmed trees and probably the healthy supply of elephant shrew that reside amongst the shrubs and hide beneath the ivy. But these wise and helpful creatures are threatened in several ways, with humans at the source of them all. We have encroached on their natural … [Read more...]
All green fingers on deck
Val Payn of the Green Gardens Project is writing a book about ecologically sustainable gardens in South Africa. She is looking for gardens that would provide good examples of inspiring, attractive, well planned and managed, ecologically sustainable gardens, to feature as inspirational and practical examples in her book. She is looking for innovative and attractive gardens … [Read more...]
Stoep Harvest part 11: Companion planting
Many of our readers would have heard of the organic gardening technique ‘companion planting’. Some of you may be confidently planting according to this method; others may be hard and fast sceptics. I imagine there are also some readers who have never even heard of the concept. This final article in the ‘Stoep Harvest’ series will explain the ideas behind companion planting and … [Read more...]
Grow your green fingers
Editor and writer the new magazine, The Indigenous Gardener, Anno Torr, is a passionate lover of South African flora. Her passion has evolved into a deep concern for the survival of our floral heritage, the environment they inhabit and the organisms they co-exist with. This on-line gardening magazine has grown out of this concern, and aims to share knowledge, opinions and … [Read more...]
Stoep Harvest part 10: Rotating your plants
Today we look at the concept of crop rotation – what is it, why do it and how does one go about doing it? Having spoken to a number of hobby-gardeners over the past few years, there seems to be a general sense of mystery and fear or scepticism around rotating one’s plants in the vegetable garden. I hope to bring clarity and confidence through making this practice easy to … [Read more...]
